It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of former underground militant, first post-Franco Secretary General of the CNT-AIT and prolific writer and historian Juan Gomez Casas in Madrid, Spain.

Many English speaking anarchists and anarcho- syndicalists will best remember the authoritative work of Gomez Casas The history of the FAI.

According to the National Committee of the CNT-AIT, Juan Gomez Casas was born in Burdeos in 1921. In 1936 Gomez Casas joined the main youth organisation affiliated with the CNT-AIT, Juventudes Libertarias (Libertarian Youth).

Upon the fascist defeat of the Revolution, Gomez Casas eluded imprisonment and joined in the clandestine struggle against the Franco regime. In 1947 he was elected as the Secretary General of the Juventudes Libertarias del Centro in Toulouse, France. Upon his return to Spain he was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in jail. He was freed from prison in 1962 and then worked as an antique painter, a trade he learned in prison.

Amazingly, with no formal education, he wrote many books, including The history of Spanish Anarcho-syndicalism, The history of the FAI and other historical books that are considered classical texts and are referred to today. Gomez Casas even translated into Spanish the classic book Moby Dick.

Those of us who were active in supporting the underground CNT-AIT, and the then emerging above ground organisation in the mid to late 1970s, will remember Gomez Casas in many ways. Aside from being a prolific propagandist he was the first above ground CNT-AIT General Secretary from 1976-1978. Here in the United States the former Libertarian Workers Group (now W.S.A. NY-NJ) had many occasions to correspond with Gomez Casas and to establish a relationship with the above ground CNT-AIT inside Spain.

Gomez Casas's long revolutionary life began to wane due to illness in 1999.

We celebrate Juan Gomez Casas's life and all the rich contributions he made to both the growth of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement and to the intellectual growth and understanding he taught us through his many writings.